#ricardian

[lackadaisycal-art]

When I say "I like Richard III", I'm not saying I condone or absolve the real historical figure. What I love is the Trinity of Richard III the fictionalised villain, Richard III the fictionalised hero and Richard III, the unknowable approximation of a real person that can be scraped together from historical records. Three separate entities often at total odds with one another and yet conceptually one person. It's the multi-faceted, contradictory, vague idea of him that finds a new way back into the Zeitgeist again and again that I love. He's become folklore.

[historicconfessions]

[ricardian-werewolf]

This is it, my big analysis of The Lost King's fashion.

It's mainly a carryover from my original reblog, but now with more pictures. Sources will be hyperlinked and once the main piece is done will receive a document of their own.

Comparison points are used as following. Richard III (1955), The Hollow Crown, 2014, and the White Queen, 2013. Richard iii 1995 was not chosen as a contender due to the fact it’s set in 1930s and is an outlier.

We're going from the top down.

(This is just a filler post)

[parabelled]

okay but I forgot to mention that there's possible new Ricardian evidence being released this weekend so I'm ready for it

[kateshistoryspot]

The End Of Murrey And Blue/Death On The Internet

I've been a subscriber to the Ricardian blog "Murrey and Blue" for going on 9 years now: I joined when I was just getting into Medieval History, and I used to find it very interesting. Unfortunately, in the last few years, I began finding the blog kind of repetitive, and I wasn't learning as much from it as I had years ago. It felt like the posts had shifted from educational to ranting, and I had genuinely loved and appreciated the educational posts. I had chalked up the change to what was going on in the Richard III Society at the time: Matt Lewis was canned from his position after sharing some taboo beliefs concerning Richard's marriage to his cousin, Anne Neville. I assumed that the fires from that were still hot, and that with the rejection of someone like Lewis from the Society, that maybe new discoveries were not really welcome (it had always been a problem within the society, and originally the complaint had been toward Dr. John Ashdown-Hill's stubbornness towards members).

It wasn't until a week ago that I found out the truth: the original creator had died, and his co-admin was left to keep the blog going, which she did for a number of years. However, she is unable to renew the domain, and so the blog is going to cease making new posts. Viscountess did state that she hoped the blog would stay UP, however she was unsure if that would be the case. Personally, I hope it stays up, as it holds a treasure trove of information about The Wars Of The Roses.

Since coming onto the history scene years ago, a number of my historian friends have died. The internet is forever, yet sometimes that means that things like Facebook profiles, playlists, and even blogs can become abandoned memorials to people who no longer post. On top of that, with death now becoming something much more tangible in digital spaces, websites have enacted safeguards for in case admins die or posters cease. Of course, Murrey and Blue, being a Wordpress blog, did not have that luxury: Wordpress has yet to cross the bridge of what can be done when a blogger dies (currently they have their hands busy with a lawsuit). Blogger is even worse: I can barely log into my own blogs there, and I am still very much alive. At least with Tumblr, I can leave my login credentials with a loved one just in case.

Murrey and Blue has been a mainstay of my life, and I hope it continues to exist in some form. It is unfortunate that the hosting domain has yet to put in safeguards for death, and it shouldn't be the reason that such a helpful resource for those interested in the time period should cease because of it. I have to wonder if maybe the posts could be put on another blog or maybe the contents downloaded and reuploaded. I'm not sure, however: I used Blogger originally, and then Wordpress for a time, yet I merely copied and pasted my posts on their respective Tumblrs, since I didn't have many posts to worry about. Nevertheless, I wish the best to ViscountessW, and her endeavors here on out.

[21stcenturyyorkist]

From up on Fotheringhay Tower. (C) By Gabriela Reade. (21st Century Yorkist.) From a young Richard of Gloucester's eyes upon seeing his father the Duke of York.

I ran to the top of the tower, my brother George and sister Margaret both struggled to keep up with me, I knew what I wanted to see. I got to the top, my cheeks all red from running, I looked out of the window taking in my surroundings. I looked at the distant hills all tall and foreboding, the rolling fields which seem to go on forever. My favourite of all is the shining river below, twinkling in the sunlight. I waited... the three of us held our breaths... we could see a barge coming along the river, a tall figure sat looking up in our direction and smiled. We all started to wave as he moored up... I know that face... its daddy.

[edwad]

it's a bit funny how so many debates around marx's critique of political economy begin from a total ignorance of the history of economic thinking and ultimately devolve into the kinds of squabbles that already existed in that literature and which marx was actually responding to. the result is that most sympathetic renderings of marx are actually just pre-marxian/uncritical

[thecrackshipdiaries]

Kate Beckinsale and Patrick Gibson

Requested: @ricardian-werewolf

[burningvelvet]

the lost king (2022) may not be entirely historically accurate or the greatest film ever made, but it's still endearing, and it does provide representation for lonely, depressed, chronically-ill women who form parasocial relationships to cope & are really obsessed with historical figures most people don't care about. and for that i'm giving it a 8/10.

[richmond-rex]

Bold words from an author who made historical women like Margaret Beaufort and Anne Boleyn into caricatures of evil.

[wonder-worker]

Here’s the thing I need people to understand:

Even if we believe that the (entirely unproven and far too politically convenient) pre-contract story between Edward IV and Eleanor Talbot was true, it doesn’t actually matter. Even if it was hypothetically true, there was still no reason why Edward V – who was already King at that point and was referred to as such – couldn’t have been able to succeed his father regardless.

David Horspool (Richard's own historian) summarizes it better than I could, so I’m just quoting him here:

"[Richard also made] no allowance for any potential solution to the problem that might have re-legitimized Edward V and his siblings. These included securing a retrospective canonical or papal judgement of the invalidity of the pre-contract; an Act of Parliament legitimizing the children of Edward and Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage, as happened to Henry VIII’s variously tainted offspring; or even ignoring the issue and proceeding to the coronation of Edward V, which would legitimize him by making him the Lord’s anointed, and render allegations of his bastardy as newer versions of the old tittle-tattle about his father."

In short, even if Edward IV truly had a pre-contract with Eleanor Talbot, and even if all of his children with Elizabeth Woodville were supposedly illegitimate, it should by no means prevent Edward V from succeeding his father to the throne. If Richard truly wanted to support his nephew, he had a variety of useful and entirely workeable options to choose from. Instead, he officially declared his nieces and nephews (including a literal 3-year-old) illegitimate, kept Edward V and his even younger brother confined in the Tower of London, and declared himself King.

Why didn't Richard take these actions, all of which he would have been well aware of? As Horspool says simply: "that Richard took none of these courses was because he had no interest in doing so."

The ONLY conclusion we can come to based on Richard's actions is summarized most succinctly by A.J Pollard:

"The truth of the matter is that Richard III did not want Edward V to be legitimate because he did not want him to be king."

[ricardian-werewolf]

Anxiety got too much so I present to my Ricardians, this!

A playlist of songs Richard could’ve listened to or had his minstrels play (since it’s mentioned by the society he had a love for music) if bardcore was the original rendition of songs and the stuff we have these days are the covers!

[edwardseymour]

‘he did charity and funded things, which is socialist’ worstie, he was a catholic king — that was literally his job

[ctsfos]

As a fellow Paddy Gibson obsessed girlie, may I suggest once Dexter OS finishes, you watch:

Shadow and bone? It’s the role that introduced me to PG 11 months ago and to say I’m still riding that high is an understatement

that gif has made my day oh my GOD!!!!!! i definitely need to watch shadow and bone, a mutual of mine on twitter recommended it for him and i actually read the books when I was slightly younger! I think I was about 14? I digress. but thank you!!!! i rlly need to get into it.. i love him

[une-sanz-pluis]

Contrary to popular assumption, Pope Boniface IX did not retrospectively render the Beauforts legitimate in the eyes of the Church when their adulterous parents eventually married. His apostolic letter explicitly states that he declares legitimate any offspring ‘received and to be received from this marriage’ [of Gaunt and their mother]: prolem ex hujusmodi matrimonio susceptam et suscipiendam (my emphasis). The Beauforts were born before their parents’ marriage.

I saw ANNETTE CARSON's article??? Their history is different from what I know. If Beaufort had not been legalized, why would Henry IV have deprived them of their inheritance rights? Why was Suffolk imprisoned during the reign of Henry VI on charges of wanting to inherit the throne?? I know this lady's paper is not very reliable, can you explain it?

I'm assuming you're talking about Annette Carson's self-published essay "The Beaufort Legitimation", which I couldn't do more than skim read as I could actively feel my braincells die as I started reading it. I'm never read Annette Carson's work before, mainly because her reputation as a crank has always preceded her (my lack of interest in Richard III also helps). This... does not convince me her reputation is unearned.

So: if a historian with a dubious reputation suddenly declares they have proof of something that upends a centuries-old accepted fact, they need some really good evidence. Carson does not have really good evidence. She has nothing new. Her "proof" is the assertion that the translators of the Calendar of Papal Letters have translated the letter legitating the Beauforts wrong and she (who, as far as I can make out, is not a trained historian), has translated it right.

I can't read Latin so I can't comment on her translation work and honestly, I think her argument is so specious that I don't think it's worth bothering my friend who does. I will note that both Carson and the Richard III Society insist she is the only one to have translated Mancini's De Occupatione Regni Anglie (again, self-published by her) properly so it seems like a trend.

I also wonder why, if the evidence is as clear-cut as Carson says it is, why no one has ever questioned it before this. The Beaufort's legitimation has been the subject of some pretty intense scrutiny, both because of what it meant for the Tudor claim to the throne and because of it's connection to the love story of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. The explanation cannot be "Tudor propaganda" or "historians are too dumb to recognise the truth" or "historians are actively covering it up" because those are deeply unserious explanations.

It also just does not make sense. Why was there the "mantle ceremony" performed in parliament when the Beauforts were legitimated if they weren't actually legitimated? Why does Froissart state the legitimation of the Beaufort children was a motivation for Gaunt's marriage to Katherine? Why did no one make plain that the Beauforts held no rights to the throne at an opportune moment? As you point out, the marriage of Suffolk's son to Margaret Beaufort raised fears he was trying to effectively claim the throne for himself. Why did no one point out that the Beauforts had no claim then? How do we explain why Henry Tudor was seen as a potential threat by the Yorkists? Why did Richard III make no use of this to nip support for Henry Tudor in the bud?

And why doesn't Carson discuss these things? Probably because it would undermine her argument and because she has no explanation for it beyond asserting that the Lancastrians and Tudors covered it up, though there was little reason to.

Her other "proof" is a highly speculative argument about Richard II and John of Gaunt's motives and relationships. It is... not good. Her bias against Gaunt is also very clear, especially since she characterises him primarily as a covetous villain. There's a lot of things here that people who specialise in Richard II's reign would take issue with. It's a very simple narrative that demonises Lancaster and sets the stage for the Glorious Yorks Correcting A Terrible Wrong. In other words, it's the prequel to the Ricardian view of the Wars of the Roses.

We don't know what Richard II really intended when he legitimated the Beauforts. Likely, it was a reward for Gaunt's assistance in the Revenge Parliament. We do not know that Richard was always planning to banish and disinherit Henry (which I believe Carson gets from Ian Mortimer - if Mortimer told me the sky was blue, I'd need a peer-review before I believed him) and that he would have never, ever have allowed the Beauforts to be in the line of the succession because he hated Gaunt that badly.

Here's some things we do know. The story Richard banished Henry for life is only, iirc, found in one account with a clear Lancastrian bias so it was probably not true. We know that he did not attaint Henry or his line - I believe there is some evidence that Richard left the possibility that Henry and his heirs could claim the inheritance open. IMHO, it seems likely that what Richard was doing was using Henry's absence as an excuse to take the duchy lands into his own hands and grant them out as he pleased in a similar way that a king could hold lands while the heir was a minor. We also know Richard had a positive relationship with Henry of Monmouth, the future Henry V, and it is entirely possible that Richard was doing this with the intention of having a Duke of Lancaster that was loyal to him. In short, the picture is a lot more complicated than Annette Carson allows.

The theory, although novel, fits in a certain pattern. Ricardians have been salivating over the thought that Henry VII had no real right to the throne for a very long time now. They've promulgated theories that Catherine of Valois's Tudor children are secret Beaufort bastards based on such poor evidence like "they had a border around their arms!" and "Edmund Tudor has the same name as Edmund Beaufort?!" They've theorised that John Beaufort was actually Hugh Swynford's son and not John of Gaunt's and thus the Tudors had no right to the throne because they had no royal blood. They've declared the Beauforts to be Not Lancastrian because they weren't descended from Blanche of Lancaster and then brought up the story about Edmund Crouchback being the elder son of Henry III as proof that the Beauforts had no right to the throne at all. They happily point to the story that John of Gaunt was a changeling because it means neither Lancaster nor Tudor had a claim to the throne... a

There is not a shred of real, definitive evidence for any of this. All of it is just a Ricardian fever dream of speculation upon speculation that basically comes back to the same old thing: proving that Henry VII had no right to the throne, none at all, and Richard III was wronged!

Deeply unserious history.